Portable computers and satellites get the credit for speeding things up by about 125 years.

Previously, a Wycliffe missionary family or team would spend decades learning and transcribing one language in a remote corner of the Earth.

Wycliffe's missionaries had the credo, "one team, one language, one lifetime," Edwards said.

At that pace, the target date had been 2150, Edwards said.

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Wycliffe Bible Translators - Heroes and Saints

And yet there are hundreds of millions of Christians who are faithful believers in the Trinitarian faith of the Creeds, and in Jesus Christ as the Divine/Human Savior of the world. They may not call their daily prayers "quiet time" or talk sentimentally about God often or even expect him to be speaking to them every day. They may focus more on objective, external assurances of grace and less on subjective, experiential ones.

That's only a part of the globalization of local church life. International visitors speak at churches all the time, email campaigns urge action to distribute malaria nets or assure decent wages for coffee pickers, bake sales raise funds for Haiti. Habitat for Humanity speaks of the "theology of the hammer," where groups working together live the spirit of "doing unto others."

A religious revolution is transforming Indonesia. Part of the spiritual blossoming entails Muslims embracing a more conservative form of faith, mirroring global trends that have meant a proliferation of headscarves and beards in modern Islamic capitals. More surprising, though, is the boom in Christianity - officially Indonesia's second largest faith and a growing force throughout Asia.